The Count Basie Theatre has donated a pair of tickets to the October 12 performance of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra with Idina to Idina-Here.com. Read on for how to win them!

- Answer 3 trivia questions…

1) What has Idina said that too many clams might make happen? (There are a few different acceptable answers.)
2) Who will be conducting the symphony at Idina’s performance on October 12?
3) Where was the theatre’s namesake born?

- E-mail your answers to contest[AT]idina-here.com (replace the [AT] with @) with NJ TICKET CONTEST in the subject line.

- Deadline to enter is July 18, 2010.

RULES:

If you have questions, please do not hesitate to ask them here in the comments. I ask that ALL questions are asked in the comments so that other people may who may have the same questions may read the questions and my answers.

Here is our final Glee media update (at least, until next time? Maybe?):
If you live in the US and you missed it, or simply want to watch it agin, you can watch “Journey” online on Hulu. You can also download Idina’s scenes via our media page.

“Journey” – ep. 1.22 – June 8, 2010
Description: Idina plays Shelby Corcoran, coach of Vocal Adrenaline.
Time: 4:52 | Size: 72.9 MB
© Fox | site exclusive
Format: .m4v
[ DOWNLOAD ] | [ SCREENCAPS ]

Playbill has announced that Idina will be a presenter at the 64th Annual Tony Awards, airing this Sunday, June 13 at 8:00pm ET/7:00pm CT on CBS. Make sure you tune in, and check back here throughout the night for photos from the red carpet! They will uploaded to our gallery in this album.

Three years ago, Idina-Here creator Kim designed a whole mini section of the site, called the Fan Corner, designed celebrate Idina’s fans.

Sadly, the mini site never really got implemented. But, it’s time to change that! I know tons of you have met Idina, especially in recent years on her tours. If you have, I’m asking for you to contribute to making this site more worthy of its title as the premiere fan resource by getting the FANS involved. I also know many of you like to play in Photoshop and make Idina-centric graphics like LiveJournal icons and desktop wallpapers, or if you’re a more traditional artist who has drawn, painted, sketched, etc etc something of Idina, I want it all added to our special fan gallery.

I want you all to spend some time reminiscing about the time you won a meet & greet, or talked to Idina at a stage door, or sat next to her on a plane, and write it out to be archived here. If you’ve already written your story on your blog or a message board, you can provide a link to it instead of retyping it if you wish. Same goes for any and all artwork.

You can visit the instructions/submission page by clicking on the above graphic or hitting the shortcut on the right column of this page. Even if you have nothing to contribute [yet], be sure to visit the Fan Corner regularly to read other people’s stories and check out the artwork.

Hope to read about your awesome experiences soon!

Here is this week’s requisite Glee media update – short & sweet this time!

“Funk” – ep. 1.21 – June 1, 2010
Description: Idina plays Shelby Corcoran, coach of Vocal Adrenaline.
Time: 1:27 | Size: 18.6 MB
© Fox | site exclusive
Format: .m4v
[ DOWNLOAD ] | [ SCREENCAPS ]

Also, Jessica J. is the winner of our San Francisco Symphony ticket giveaway. Congratulations, Jessica, and thanks to everyone who participated (and to the Symphony for donating the tickets)!

How amazing was Idina on Glee last night? SO amazing! Seth Rudetsky would say she was amahhhhzing. She finally got her time in the solo spotlight, singing a wonderfully poignant rendition of “Funny Girl,” and showed off her acting chops in emotional scenes with costar Lea Michele. Their “Poker Face” duet was fun and had a surprising emotional streak to it. Both tracks are available on iTunes – click their hyperlinked titles above to purchase and help Idina climb the iTunes singles charts for the second week in a row!

“Theatricality” – ep. 1.20 – May 25, 2010
Description: Idina performs “Poker Face” with Lea Michele and “Funny Girl.”
Time: 15:27 | Size: 228.5 MB
site exclusive
Format: .m4v
[ DOWNLOAD ] | [ SCREENCAPS ]

Idina and Twitter are becoming good friends, making her 3/3 in trends to Glee appearances.

There are only 6 days left to enter our ticket giveaway contest for Idina’s concert in San Francisco on July 9! If you haven’t already, make sure you read the rules & enter today! The deadline is 11:59 pm EDT May 31, 2010 and the winner will be chosen June 1, so get those entries in! (Please remember that the prize is 2 concert tickets ONLY and not a complete travel package. You must be able to/from get yourself to San Francisco!)

The fan club presale for Idina’s Brookville, NY concert on October 2 has launched! For details, visit IdinaMenzel.com. Public on sale begins June 5.

Idina’s birthday is this Sunday, May 30, and we’ll be posting a “birthday card” here on the site. If you want to wish Idina a happy birthday, be sure to register with our site so you can leave your comments on the post where Idina will see them!

Idina returned to Glee as Vocal Adrenaline coach Shelby Corcoran last night, and the big, shocking, astounding, completely inconceivable reveal happened! But I don’t want to spoil it for those who have yet to see it, so here are the bullet points for “Dream On:”

If you live in the US and you missed it, or simply want to watch it again, you can watch “Dream On” online on Hulu. You can also download Idina’s scenes via our media page:

Glee Episode: “Dream On” Description: Guest appearance as Shelby Corcoran Time: 5:09 Size: 77.5 MB [ DOWNLOAD ] | [ SCREENCAPS ]

Idina trended once again on Twitter, defying their funky new algorithm. She actually hit the trends two different occasions, nationwide during the east coast broadcast and worldwide during the west coast’s!

Volume 3 of the Glee soundtrack series is now available on iTunes, including Idina’s duets with Lea Michele on last night’s “I Dreamed a Dream” and next week’s “Poker Face.” “I Dreamed a Dream” is presently the #8 iTunes single in the US, marking Idina’s first iTunes Top 10 song. If you haven’t already, head to iTunes to purchase it today to bump her higher. Similarly, if you want to help her chart even higher next week, wait until Tuesday or Wednesday to purchase “Poker Face” to join and boost the masses that will be buying the track after hearing it on Glee. Nothing wrong with a bit of strategery!

Entertainment Tonight – May 18, 2010
Description: Idina Menzel Offers Up Glee Finale Details
Time: 2:19 | Size: 9.1 MB
Player: Flash
© Entertainment Tonight
[ DOWNLOAD ] | [ STREAM ]

Tweet

As a site exclusive, fans may now download Idina’s scenes from the 1×14 episode of Glee, titled “Hell-O,” in the Video Archive! As always, we’ll screencap, merge video, etc. for all of Idina’s upcoming episodes.

Glee Episode: “Hell-O” Description: Guest appearance as Shelby Corcoran Time: 6:04 Size: 89.8 MB [ DOWNLOAD ] | [ SCREENCAPS ]

IdinaMenzel.com has announced the remaining episodes of Glee that Idina will be appearing in:

Episode 1×19 – May 18 – “Dream On”
Episode 1×20 – May 25 – “Theatricality”
Episode 1×21 – June 1 – “Funk”
Episode 1×22 – June 8 – “Journey”

SPOILER ALERT!
It’s also been reported that creator Ryan Murphy has confirmed Idina will be singing in the episode that features a Lady Gaga theme. Murphy stated, “Lea [Michele] and Idina Menzel will do an acoustic version of ‘Poker Face’ that [Lady Gaga] blessed and that she wanted us to do. It’s sort of like a stripped-down mother-daughter ‘Poker Face’ that Lady Gaga was involved in.” Idina will also be performing “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables. when the show returns! Intriguing!

I’ve also added a handful of [dreaded but coveted] paparazzi photos from a March 13 outing Idina & Taye made to see the new Alice In Wonderland. Click the thumbnails below to view.

While viewing this site on my iPhone’s browser today, I had a thought – wouldn’t it be nice if IDINA-HERE had an official iPhone app? Based on a quick ask via @idina_here, it seems a good number of fans there would be interested in having a site app for their iPhone/iPod Touch (and many for their Blackberries, too).

UPDATE!
I discovered that I can provide an app-like version of this site by some simple coding modifications. Now when you view this site on your mobile device (iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, Droid, etc), you will see an option at the bottom to turn on the Mobile Theme. This will provide you with a device-friendly version of the site! Pretty cool, huh?